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School Of Bullied 13-Year-Old Who Committed Suicide Called ACS On Parents Instead Of Helping

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 02:30 PST, Aug 14, 2016

The distraught parents of the 13-year-old boy from a Brooklyn Catholic school who committed suicide because he couldn’t handle the bullying anymore claim the school did absolutely nothing to help their son. In fact, the administrators of the school the 13-year-old boy was being bullied at sent child-welfare investigators to the home of the family instead, according to the New York Post.

The family of Danny Fitzpatrick, the 13-year-old who committed suicide to escape the bullying, claim the school made a very wrong decision when they decided to send Administration for Children’s Services to their home instead of doing anything about the bullying. The family believes the school not doing anything about the bullying is what led to Danny hanging himself with a belt in the family’s attic. It was Danny’s older sister who found him dead late on Thursday night.

“They called ACS on us,” claimed as she was fighting back tears of sorrow.

“Danny told us they [administrators] were asking questions: ‘Do Mom and Dad drink? Do they feed you? Do they have clothes in the house?’ Next thing you know, 7:30 at night, I have an ACS officer at my door, and my son told him, ‘I just want a friend.'”

The parents did agree to a detailed investigation. They even allowed the investigators to do a drug test on both parents. Ultimately, the investigators were not able to find anything wrong with the boy’s home life.

The parents claim they did meet with the principal of the school, Rosemarie McGoldrick. The principal informed the parents the bullying was just a phase and that it would pass. Angry and upset, the parents were making plans for Danny to attend a different school in the fall. However, the bullying continued.

Before 13-year-old Daniel Fitzpatrick committed suicide because he was being taunted and bullied at school he wrote a final and heartbreaking letter describing the bullying in detail and the fact that no one at the school even tried to help him. According to the 13-year-old, he was constantly badgered and degraded over his weight. His grades and his innocent heart could not take the bullying anymore. Both he and his parents begged the school he attended for help. Teachers and even the principal at Holy Angels Catholic Academy ignored the fact that the boy was being tormented at school. They refused to do anything about it thinking the bullying would stop in time, according to New York Daily News.

“I gave up,” the teen penned on the side of his suicide note. “The teachers… they didn’t do anything,”

Devastated, the parents of the 13-year-old who committed suicide, made the decision to share the letter the boy wrote with the news. Daniel wrote the note back in July because he wanted someone to be “accountable” for bullying him.

“My son shouldn’t have to die to be heard,” Daniel’s distraught mom told the New York Daily News.

“There’s something wrong with the adults in authority positions when kids can’t go to them for help. No parent is supposed to bury their child.”

The family of the 13-year-old described him as a sweet and sensitive softie who would cover his eyes if movies were too scary. Daniel was set to start Brooklyn’s Xaverian High School in the fall, but he wrote the letter anyway because he wanted to make sure some action was taken to stop the bullying. Originally, the mother believes the boy had planned to send the letter to the school after he had started at his new school.

“Mom I want them to know what they did to me and how I feel,” The mother recalled her son telling her about the letter. “I want them to hear my story.”

The 13-year-old originally wrote the letter after the school returned the $100 registration fee to the family on June 30. The school went on to recommend that they thought Daniel should repeat the same grade – 7th – at a different school.

Daniel’s father considered the school’s recommendation to be a slap in the face as his parents believe the bullying is ultimately what led to his academic struggles as well as his suicide.

“His grades went from passing to the low 40s and 60s. His confidence was completely shattered.”

In the letter, the 13-year-old who committed suicide because he was bullied claims there was a group of five boys who bullied him constantly. He even went on to reveal he fought one of the boys once only to end up with a fractured pinkie.

According to the parents, the bullies would often target Daniel during gym class. Sometimes they would throw balls at him. The parents said the teachers only made the bullying worse when one of the teachers called Daniel “lazy” in front of the other students.

Kristen, the youngest of the 13-year-old’s three older sisters, was also a student at Holy Angels in Bay Ridge. She claimed the teacher was known for humiliating students. According to the sister, the teacher would hold up tests and papers to publically display when a student did poorly and embarrass them to the rest of the class.

“If one person didn’t like you, no one liked you,” she said.

“Danny was always left out. He used to come up to me and ask me to get kids to play with him. The other kids would say they thought he was weird.”

The distraught parents of the 13-year-old who committed suicide do not think their son should have had to die for the school to take the problem with bullying seriously. Daniel did claim there was one teacher who made a small effort to help him cope with the bullying. It, however, was not enough to stop the 13-year-old from committing suicide to get away from the bullying.

[Image via ThinkStock]

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